Getting Started

As time goes on, I'm making more and more T-shirt quilts for friends, family, friends of family, family of friends, etc.  Every time I start a new one or are discussing a new one with the owner, I wish I had central location to keep pictures, to use as a reference. So that is the purpose of this blog.  Pretty simple and hopefully useful as time goes on.
So here we go:

This is Marion's quilt, for my daughter.  It contains approx. 20 years worth of church related activities.  Preschool, vacation bible school, youth camp, etc.  I was able to squeeze in an amazing number of shirts, but I've been more judicious since.  I also made this one with an old Winnie the Pooh sheet for the backing and a cotton batting.  And it is VERY heavy.  I've switched to using fleece backing since this first one and like it much better.  Fewer layers and helps the quilt drape better too.

 

Marion's Quilt

 I learned a lot on Marion's quilt, all self taught.  I determined it worked best to use a light weight, woven, fusible backing.  I purchase a bolt with a 40% or 50% off coupon or else get it on sale.  I also discovered most t-shirts are roughly the same width.  The ones that aren't, I add some extra sashing to get them to a standard width.   Grouping the t-shirt blocks into columns simplifies the construction significantly.

Holly's New York quilt, made for one of my daughter's friends, reflects her love of travel with her family and her love of dance.

Holly's New York Quilt

Jessica's quilt was made for another friend of my daughter (noticing a trend here).  Jessica is one of my "second daughters", an honorary member of our family.  I fully expect Jessica will help take care of me when I'm old and decrepit. How's that for a happy face, I love pictures of my quilts with their new owners!

1st Raffle quilt for fund raiser at work.  For this quilt I asked co-workers to donate t-shirts received at work. The raffle raised several hundred dollars and the quilt is now proudly displayed in my boss's office.

 You may have noticed by this point, I have used a certain black with multi colored dots as the sashing and borders.  I have also bought this fabric by the bolt.  It works so well with the multi-colored t-shirts as well as the novelty I spy quilts I love to make.  The intent of the sashing is to frame and provide a background to the shirts.  The black works well, though I've used others on occasion.

This seems a good place to break - stay tuned